No less than 70 volunteers trooped to Maulawin-Maahas Creek in Los Baños, Laguna to clear the waterways from debris--including plastic discards—and to plant indigenous forest trees and fruit bearing trees to stabilize its streambank on Thursday, November 21, 2013.

Officials and residents of barangays Maahas and San Antonio, and the office of the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) of the municipality of Los Baños, and selected students of Laguna State Polytechnic University (LSPU) beefed-up the group from the DENR Region 4A CALABARZON’s Coastal and Marine Management Division (CMMD) and the DENR-Laguna provincial office in collecting some 50 sacks-full of various household wastes such as disposable diapers, food wrappers, clothing, bottles and bicycle tires.

Dr. Domingo R. Bravo, Deputy Site Manager of the Manila Bay Coordinating Office-Site Management Office 4 (MBCO-SMO4), concurrently chief of the of CMMD, stressed the importance of the activity as not just a simple clean up to benefit the residents of the the two barangays of San Antonio and Maahas, but for all the barangays along the entire stretch of the river, along the Laguna de Bay, and Manila Bay.

He emphasized that regular clean up be done, that even simply not dumping of waste into the creek, and encouraging neighbors to do the same, will go a long way. He also requested the barangay officials to take care of the trees—with emphasis on the fruit bearing trees—to let them grow, hold on to the soil and bear fruits.

DENR-Laguna office has targeted to rehabilitate the streambanks of the 10-km stretch of the Maulawin-Maahas Creek, from its headwaters in Mount Makiling to its mouth in Laguna de Bay. It allotted 500,000 seedlings of indigenous species for forest trees such as narra, bitaog, camachile, banaba and fruit bearing trees such as rambutan, guayabano and langka to be planted on both sides of the creek.

As he appreciated the support of the LGU, and the youth who participated in the tree planting and clean-up, he requested residents along the creek to help maintain the planted seedlings and help them grow into robust trees.